


Oblique

by prairiecrow



Series: Geometry [12]
Category: Knight Rider (1982), Torchwood
Genre: Argument In The Street, Awesome Gwen, Conversation Over Drinks, Established Relationship, Even Though She's Still Crazy Attracted To Him Herself, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gwen Isn't Going To Let Jack Get Away With This, Ianto and Gwen Disagree About How To Approach This, Jack Doesn't Want To Talk About It, Jack Feels Betrayed, Jack Harkness Flirts, M/M, Owen Won't Hesitate to Jump Someone and Drug Them, POV Gwen Cooper, Physical Struggle, Secrets, Torchwood Team Intervention, Truth Squid, Unspoken Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-20 00:28:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1490020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen Cooper has watched Jack Harkness's relationship with the android known as KITT unfold for months, driven by pheromones and shrouded in secrets. Now that KITT has lost any chance of returning to his home dimension and his original pilot, she thinks it's time that Jack faced up to a few inconvenient truths — and made a full confession to the only person on the Torchwood team who doesn't know Jack's in love with him, or why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Immortal Walks Into A Bar...

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place eleven days after the events of "Random Variables".

On the last Saturday night of February 2009 it only took Gwen about twenty minutes to find Jack after leaving the Hub: he was exactly where Tosh had predicted, holed up at the bar in _The Boar and Rose_ pub. Gwen paused on the twilit sidewalk across the street, slipping up beside a light post to be out of the way of the busy evening pedestrian traffic, and watched through the multi-paned windows for several seconds while Jack accepted his pint glass, took a sip as he scanned the room, spotted some likely quarry, then took the pint with him while he sauntered over to a pair of busty young "ladies" sitting at a tall table along the side wall — scantily clad, tarted up in high heels and full makeup, and sporting long manes of hair so garish that if they were real blondes Gwen would eat her old policewoman's hat. They turned in their seats as Jack swaggered up to them, and his flashing grin plus the rakish cant of his hips made them break out in welcoming smiles of their own.

Gwen bit back a sigh. _Typical._ Well, she was about to throw a monkey wrench into the well-oiled works of Jack's seduction machinery, and she wasn't yet sure how big the explosion was going to be — only that there'd be one, and that it was long overdue.

 _"Well?"_ Ianto queried in her right ear. 

"Got him in sight," Gwen confirmed. "I'm moving in." She removed the headset and stuffed it deep into the pocket of her leather jacket: no need to alert Jack to the fact that this was a group project any earlier than necessary. Then she crossed the street and pushed through the pub's bright red door into the dark warm interior; when Jack automatically glanced round to see who'd entered, she caught his eyes and smiled friendly and wide while heading toward the bar, beckoning him to follow. 

He ignored her, of course. So as soon as she'd found two unoccupied seats at the bar and ordered two fresh pints she pulled out her cell phone and texted him: DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE, JACK.

She saw him check his phone while the bottle blondes looked him up and down like two Dobermans scoping out a slab of raw meat at the butcher's shop. He put the phone back in his pocket, leaned in to say something that made them both giggle and thrust out their bosoms even more, then left his pint at their table to cross the pub again, his dark eyebrows pulled together in a thunderous scowl as soon as he'd turned fully away from the prey he was trying to impress into bed with him.

"Gwen," he said flatly when he was in easy speaking range.

"Jack," she nodded, and glanced at the empty barstool beside her. Jack gave her an _Are you kidding me?_ look, which she answered with a _No, and you'd better get your arse on that stool!_ raised eyebrow. After another second of glowering he obeyed with ill grace that still managed to be graceful indeed, flipping back the tails of his greatcoat to fall artistically behind him as he settled his very nice arse onto the worn leather seat that Gwen frankly envied, just a little bit. 

"Couldn't this have waited?" he groused, picking up the pint in front of him with a casual glance around the room that only confirmed to Gwen's Jack-attuned senses just how pissed off he was. He flicked a scornful glance in her direction, not quite making contact. "Whatever the hell 'this' is? I'm kind of _busy._ "

Gwen's mind flashed back to the Hub, where KITT was currently holed up in Storage Room 7-C long after he'd actually finished recharging: lying stiff and still on his metal couch that had once been set up for Cyberman conversions, staring into middle space while Tosh and Gwen spied on him through the CCTV system. Sometimes he'd clenched his fists and sometimes he'd sighed, while varying degrees of distress registered on his oh-so-human mask of a face. At one point Gwen had even seen a glowing blue tear track down his cheekbone, fading to gunmetal grey after a couple of minutes when he didn't bother to wipe it away. "Actually, no — it couldn't. D'you know where KITT is right now?"

Jack shrugged as he sipped his Guinness. "Recharging, last I checked. Why're you asking _me?"_

 _Because you take him off alone and play house with him two days minimum out of every week, that's why!_ Gwen almost shot back, but that would only set flame to tinder right off the bat. Instead she answered patiently: "He finished that hours ago. Now he's just lying on his recharge couch, all alone, staring into space like a dog who's lost his master."

Another shrug. "So he needs some private time. It happens. If he wanted company, he could go upstairs anytime." Another sip, tiny wrinkles gathering at the corners of his eyes while he looked past Gwen's right ear at the taps behind the bar. "As for the staring, that doesn't mean anything: you know he's not like us, human body language doesn't apply. He's probably busy defragging his registries, or —"

Gwen, who had been closely watching this particularly infuriating man for nearly two years now, knew what those wrinkles meant: something in Jack was tightening, tension building in his chest and his gut, unease mounting behind his sharp blue eyes that were outwardly so cavalier. She _knew_ , because knowing him had been her curse from the day she'd met him — a curse that today might be turned into a force for good. So she interrupted: "When are you going to tell him, Jack?"

Jack didn't miss a beat. "Tell who what?" He glanced back over his shoulder, still managing not to look at Gwen as his gaze slipped past her, and flashed a smile at the two blondes. One of them wiggled her fingers at him in a coy little wave, and Jack lit up, talking sideways to Gwen with only half his attention, if that: "Ianto? Because if you're talking about those blondes…" A shifting of his hips that suggested Little Jack was starting to feel uncomfortably eager in the confines of Big Jack's trousers. "He already knows I've got a thing for short skirts, high heels and really big —"

"You know who I mean." She drew a steadying breath and continued in her most reasonable tone, well aware that she was stepping into a field liberally sowed with land mines. "After everything he's just lost, I think it would really do him good to hear how you honestly —"

And not even two steps in, a silent yet earth-shattering _BOOM!_ erupted under her feet.

Jack's head turned sharply: now he was looking directly at her, and the impact of his sudden ferocious attention hit her like a slap in the face. His unblinking eyes were shooting beams of profound displeasure, undisguised anger — and something else, something she was sure he didn't want anybody to see. Under the explosions and the layers of armour lay something as tender as the heart of a rose, but before Gwen could do more than catch the elusive scent of its bittersweet perfume Jack was on his feet, broad shoulders squared and eyes on fire.

"Thanks for the drink," he ground out as if through a throat full of gravel, leaning aggressively closer to deliver his parting blow: "And _no_ thanks for the lecture!"

"Jack!" She stared after the irate wall of his departing back, then fumbled a ten pound note out of her wallet and slapped it down on the bar, not even bothering to calculate the proper tip. By then Jack had already slammed out the door, and she had to run to catch up with him, calling after him as she jogged up the sidewalk in the wake of his ground-devouring strides: "Jack, wait!"

He ignored her. Again. "Oh, that's your answer to everything, isn't it?" she yelled at the back of his head, not giving a flying damn how many pedestrians were staring at them. "If you can't punch it in the face, you run the other way! _Jack!"_


	2. Sidewalk Confrontation

She didn't have to hear Jack exhale to know he'd just huffed angrily — but frankly she was a fair ways past caring about his indignation, because he'd gotten his own way with this situation for far _far_ too long. She darted up alongside him and hooked her right hand into his left elbow, digging in her heels so he was forced to stop or drag her along bodily in his wake. For a half-second she thought he really was just going to keep going full steam ahead, but he checked mid-stride and spun in place, glaring down into her wide-eyed face and tilting his finely cleft chin upward a fraction of an inch in clear defiance. 

Gwen met his gaze squarely, aware that she was flushed with determination and still concerned enough about being attractive in his eyes to feel a qualm of self-consciousness. Nevertheless she pressed home her point, albeit in a lower and more measured voice: "He's lost everything he was hoping for! He _needs_ you!"

If possible, Jack's eyes flashed even brighter. "No!" he contradicted sternly. "In fact, I'm the _last_ thing he needs!"

It was such an unexpected assertion that she stared up at him, momentarily thrown off her stride. A tiny smile tugged at one corner of Jack's expressive mouth, sardonic and triumphant; he tugged his arm out of Gwen's grasp and turned away again —

— and had barely gone two more long strides when she found her voice again, full of new and incredulous heat: "Well! I must say I never thought I'd see the day the amazing and wonderful Jack Harkness would admit he wasn't —"

He stopped again. He spun on his heel and advanced on her, his right index finger brandished in her face. "D'you know what he needs, Gwen? He needs someone like you, or Ianto — someone _dependable_. You said it yourself: I'm not."

She stood her ground, looking past the warning finger and into his unblinking eyes. "That doesn't matter to him!" she insisted, because really, couldn't Jack see it? Was he that blind? "In fact, it's just the opposite! Everybody knows he's crazy about you!"

Jack dropped his hand, cocked his head to one side and gave her a long, hard, considering look. "Everybody, huh?" 

"Um…" The cat was out of the bag now and headed for the far horizon, so Gwen didn't try to take back what she hadn't intended to reveal, at least not so bluntly. Instead she simply nodded. 

"So what are you saying I should do?" Jack demanded in somewhat calmer voice. Gwen wasn't fooled. She knew how deeply he could sheathe the razored steel of his spirit when he chose to do so, and she knew she was still within half an inch of getting sliced to bloody ribbons by his wrath. Still… she thought of that single tear tracking down a pale silk cheek from a profoundly inhuman eye, silent and hopeless and —

 _Definitely_ long enough. They stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at each other while pedestrian traffic detoured around them and streamed by on either side, but as far as Gwen was concerned there were only three people in the world right now: herself, and this infuriating enigmatic immortal, and the machine she knew he loved but insisted on keeping at arm's length…

… the machine who, as impossible as it should have been, clearly loved him in return. 

"Tell him how you feel," she said quietly — she implored, in fact.

Jack laughed, sharp and bitter. "Oh, really?" He glanced away, up toward the rapidly darkening sky, then back to Gwen's silent expectant face. "Let's say I do. Let's say I get down on one knee and confess everything. Then what? You know what'd happen if I did?" The fire in his eyes shifted character from anger toward something almost desperate. "He'd want to know _why_ , and he wouldn't rest until he'd poked and pried and dug up the truth. And when he did, when he found out about the pheromones, he'd do one of two things: he'd shut himself down, or he'd run as far and as fast as he could."

"Or," Gwen countered, "he'd stay and work it out with you." 

This time Jack's wide smile was contemptuous. "Boy, you really haven't been paying attention, have you? _To preserve and protect human life_ — that's his purpose, his whole reason for being. If he suspected for one second that I was being compelled by pheromones, pheromones _he_ was generating, he'd blame himself for putting me in danger, and he'd take himself out of the picture." He took a half step nearer, visibly edging into the red again although his voice was low and tightly controlled. "I _cannot_ let that —"

A flash of inspiration struck Gwen between the eyes. "What about after you were buried?"

That stopped him in his tracks all over again. He stared at her, his eyes narrowing in perplexity. "What?"

"When you were buried for all those centuries, and then came back. Were you under the influence of his pheromones then? Or had it worn off?" She gave him a full count of three to answer, her heart rising more with every passing second, because each second without an answer confirmed how close to home she'd hit. When she mentally reached 'three' she took a full step toward him, reaching out to lay a sympathetic hand on his left arm. "Jack —"

He almost flinched away, as if he thought her touch would burn him. The light in his eyes had gone cold, cold as frost, cold as poison. "This conversation is over," he said in an oddly choked voice, then turned away and started up the street again with a stride that tried to be decisive and only ended up, to Gwen, looking mortally wounded. 

She followed him, letting him maintain the distance between them but speaking to him firmly: "So that's it, then? You _are_ just going to run away!"

Jack tossed a glance back over his left shoulder, not meeting her eyes. The tightly bound pain in his voice made her heart ache. "Believe me, if I could, I would."

She didn't want to hurt him more. But she had to. "You weren't, were you? That's why you stayed out of his way afterwards, so you could figure out whether or not to —"

He stopped. He spun. He glared. "No. Do _not_ go there."

She stopped, pitching her voice to warm compassion. "It's not just the pheromones anymore, is it? Jack, you need to tell him!"

He glared at her — but she felt as if he were pleading, too, until he turned round sharply again. "I don't need to do a damned thing!"

This time she let him go, sending a soft call after him like a cord to twine round his bleeding heart: "You can't keep this up forever!"

"Oh yeah?" He didn't even look round this time. "Watch me."

And just like that, he was gone. She felt him slip her hold, a wild animal resolutely untameable, and she stared after him as he disappeared into the evening bar-hopping crowd, probably off to find another hunting ground for his prodigious sexual appetites — another way to forget his rage and his grief at being trapped, even if he had chosen to be caught in the end.

And she'd brought up the whole ugly situation no good purpose whatsoever. Had she really expected him to run back to the Hub, find KITT, and pour out his heart like a starry-eyed lover? Instead she'd just succeeded in wakening him to his own inner torment, and driving him even further away. And now he knew that the whole team knew what was going on, _oh God_ , that was sure to come back to bite their collective asses in the — 

It was the buzz of the cellphone in her pocket that brought her from her troubled state of growing guilt back to the present. Checking the message, she saw that it was from Ianto: ANY LUCK?

NO GOOD, she texted back, slowly turning toward _The Boar and Rose_ again.

A pause, in which she could clearly envision Ianto cursing under his breath. I'LL BE RIGHT OVER.

Gwen sighed and tucked the phone back into her pocket. She could use a good stiff drink right now, and the company wouldn't hurt, surely…


	3. A Gordian Knot

She was back at the bar, sipping a whiskey sour and trying to disregard the death-glares coming from the table with the two blondes, when Ianto slipped into the pub about ten minutes later with his usual understated "I hope I'm not intruding" demeanour, an effect enhanced by his muted grey-and-brown fall jacket that made him blend into almost any urban background. Gwen managed a faint smile as he wove his way through the light crowd to the barstool with her folded leather jacket laid over it. "Hey."

"Hey," Ianto nodded. She removed the jacket, which he held out his hand for, but she shook her head and simply draped it over her own lap. 

Ianto scowled. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," she nodded, and Ianto shrugged, emitting a distinct aura of disapproval that the jacket hadn't ended up neatly and properly hung on one of the nearby wall pegs. His arse wasn't even fully on the stool before the bartender was right there in front of them, ready to take his order — Gwen's 66% tip earlier was certainly enough To Insure Promptness, at least for this evening — and less than ten seconds later Ianto had a pint of the house's best bitters in front of him, as well as a little paper napkin for him to pick up and turn in his fingers while his earnest gaze studied Gwen's profile. 

"So?" he prompted after a few seconds, and Gwen laid the sequence of events out for him from the moment she'd entered the pub, including the role of the two blondes — Ianto craned his neck casually, just enough to get a look at them, and from the sharp rise of his eyebrows Gwen honestly couldn't tell whether he approved of Jack's taste or not. It was only a verbal sketch of actions and dialogue that she was offering, but recounting it even in outline made her more keenly aware of how the encounter had gotten away from her —

"— but what else could I do?" she asked Ianto at last, trying not to sound either too frustrated or too plaintive. "If I'd tried to talk around it he would have played keep-away all night, and _somebody_ had to make him face up to it!"

"Mm," Ianto said, now gazing into his pint as if the secrets of Life, the Universe and Everything lay somewhere in the pattern of foam clinging to the sides of the glass.

Gwen looked at him more intently. "You agree with me… right?"

Ianto tilted the mug, apparently found no new intelligence in the changing patterns of white and brown, and downed a good swallow of the contents. "I think trying to force Jack to do anything Jack doesn't want to do is an exercise in futility," he said at last.

Gwen stared at him, incredulous. "But he can't be happy like this! He'd be so much better off if everything was out in the open!"

Ianto looked sidelong at her, his boyish mouth solemn. "That's… a matter of opinion."

For an instant, Gwen was stricken by a horrible suspicion: that Ianto was determined to throw wooden shoes into the gears because he wanted Jack all to himself. It made perfect sense, and made her angry enough to snap: "You're afraid that if he tells KITT how he feels, he won't have any more time for you! Is that it?"

But Ianto just sighed, his gaze wandering across the grain of the bar's dark wooden top as if he were lost in thought. "No," he said at last in his quiet way, "he's made it pretty clear that —" Then he gave himself a little shake and helped himself to another quick sip of his pint. 

Gwen gave him a couple of seconds before prompting: "Pretty clear that… what?"

Ianto shrugged with his eyes still averted, clearly uncomfortable. "It's not important."

Briefly she considered prying deeper, but Ianto Jones was like an oyster: once his shell snapped closed, it would take a sledgehammer to crack him open again. Instead she changed tactics: "We could always just tell KI—"

Which brought Ianto back into the conversation instantly. "Oh, no! No, no, _no_. I am _not_ getting in the middle of _that_ muddle."

"Why not?"

He turned to face her more fully, his pale eyes suddenly clear and bright. "Well, for one thing Jack would castrate me. And for another, he's right about one thing: KITT could potentially react very badly."

Gwen considered that for a moment, meeting Ianto's gaze. "You really think he'd run?"

"If we're lucky," Ianto said flatly, "running is all he'd do." He turned to his drink again, still talking: "You know what a drama queen he is. Probably wind up throwing himself into a volcano, or hijacking a rocket and flying it into the sun —" A briefly sarcastic twist of his mouth. "— after a long speech about how he's betrayed everything he was built for, and so on and so forth."

She watched him take another sip of bitters, giving him time to elaborate on the thought, but when he remained mute she picked up the thread again: "So that's it, we just…"

"… leave them to figure it out for themselves," Ianto nodded. "Sounds like a plan to me."

Gwen turned her attention to her own drink: mouthful, swish, swallow. "I can't believe he'd leave — not when Jack needs him." And she levelled a significant glance at Ianto, who looked up again and blinked owlishly.

"Me? How should I know?"

Tonight was a night for disclosing all sorts of secrets, apparently. "Well, you and him and Jack, you've been…" She executed a little wiggle from her shoulders to her hips, along with another significant Look. "Haven't you? At least once?"

Instead of being embarrassed, or offended, Ianto just appeared quietly exasperated. "I see. So, because I've seen him naked you figure I know what he's thinking, is that it?"

Well, when he put it that way… she offered him a sheepish smile. "Guess it's not that simple, is it?"

"You have _no_ idea," Ianto muttered.

For about a minute they drank in fairly companionable silence: Gwen was turning over her encounter with Jack, examining it from all angles looking for new insights, and Ianto… well, who knew what Ianto was thinking at the best of times? But at last Ianto said: "D'you _want_ to lose KITT?"

"I…" Which brought her back right sharp. "Of course not!"

Ianto nodded, as if that settled the matter. "Then the best thing we can do is leave well enough alone, and wait. Sooner or later something'll tip the balance one way or another."

Gwen prompted him with a glance. "For instance…?"

"Maybe Jack will decide to let Owen try some of those new heavy-duty suppressants he's come up with. Or maybe KITT will get swept away in a transdimensional rift. Or maybe —"

"— maybe Jack will decide he's sick and tired of keeping the secret," Gwen interjected, although she knew it was a silly notion even before Ianto gave her a highly skeptical look. "Right. This is _Jack_ we're talking about."

"He could keep a secret 'til the sun burns out," Ianto stated, almost a sigh. He finished his pint and signalled the bartender to bring another. "It'd be easier all round, if KITT hadn't become sort of…"

"… a friend?" Gwen suggested.

Ianto never snorted. Until he did. "I wouldn't go that far."

"I would," Gwen declared, and waited for the bartender to bring a fresh pint before continuing in a lower voice: "He's a decent… whatever the hell he is."

This time Ianto's glance was almost amused. "Futuristic android with energy manipulation and data extraction capabilities, plus the attitude of an opera diva?"

"He's bright, he's dependable, and he's got a good heart," Gwen insisted. "You've seen the way he is with children."

Which Ianto had to acknowledge with a nod: KITT was pure business while out on missions, but he always had time to spend with a child who needed attention or comforting. Still, he added a caveat: "Not to mention an Olympic-size flagpole up his arse."

 _You would know, wouldn't you?_ Gwen almost asked impishly — and had to firmly push away thoughts of Jack's 'flagpole', and the possible dimensions thereof. "I happen to know a few people like that, and they've turned out all right. Maybe you and KITT are too much alike, did you ever think of that?"

Ianto rolled his eyes, but she noticed he didn't actually try to refute the point. 

"I just don't want to see either of them get hurt," she continued, striving to convey the full force of her sincerity through her voice and the wide appeal of her eyes — she was well aware they were arguably her best feature. "And the road they're on right now —"

"Yep," Ianto nodded curtly. "Still — not our call, is it? Jack's painted himself into a corner, and the only one who can paint him out again is —" 

"— Jack," Gwen concluded reluctantly. She bit back the sigh that threatened to rise from her gut, in favour of another argument: "But where's that leave KITT? He's like a lost child himself, now he's got no hope of ever going home again!"

One corner of Ianto's mouth curved in a humourless smile. "He'll be fine, as long as he has Jack. And I don't think Jack's going anywhere." He waited for Gwen's little nod of acknowledgement before making his next point: "KITT's a realist. If you want my advice, the best thing we can do is keep him occupied with work until he sorts things out for himself. In fact, I think I'll ask him to lend me a hand on my current archiving project — bet he'd be brilliant at keeping track of things, especially those one-thousand-and-counting Nuranian neuro-beads, every one of them operating on a different frequency. Don't know what the hell Jack was thinking, accepting the bloody things in trade for the Crown of Gol'dara…"

Gwen nodded silently, and sipped her whiskey sour while letting Ianto find conversational refuge in work-related ramblings. He certainly didn't have to know that she was already pondering how to approach her quarry again, this time without triggering any of Jack's defensive systems — or at least, not as many and not as spectacularly. There might not be a way to accomplish her goal without blowing the whole thing sky-high… but Mary Cooper hadn't raised her little girl to give up on a task just because seeing it through it wasn't going to be either quick or easy, and Gwen was capable of both patience and persistence. 

In spite of all his numerous sins and missteps, Jack deserved a chance at happiness. And if he wasn't smart enough to spot that chance and go for it, what else could Gwen do out of love for him but step in and lend a hand? 


	4. For His Own Good

Gwen's conversation with Ianto over drinks had continued to weigh heavily on her mind afterwards, but over the six weeks that followed all her plotting and planning couldn't find a way around Jack's resolute determination to avoid the entire subject of his relationship with KITT. In the end, Ianto turned out to have made the correct prediction: something _did_ happen, something that Jack couldn't explain away, an event so sudden and so traumatic that he didn't even have a chance to deploy his legendary charm against it.

Shortly after 1 a.m on the morning of April 12th 2009, the Hub's cog wheel door cycled open, the bars parted, and Jack strode through them into his domain like an avenging angel — or perhaps a demon, Hell-bent on bloody vengeance. Gwen followed a few steps behind, every nerve in her body singing the fine high song of adrenaline on the verge of being released for the fourth or fifth time in the past seven hours. Tosh, at her standard station, kept her eyes fixed on her largest screen as she typed; Ianto, standing beside and behind her, caught Gwen's eye across the intervening metres and nodded once. Gwen swallowed, hoping that signal meant they'd had time to put a plan in place, and kept her eyes on Jack — or Jack's stiffened back, at least, as it came to an abrupt halt about ten feet away from the computer station. Gwen immediately stopped as well, every instinct she possessed telling her to keep a safe distance while Jack planted both hands on his hips, flaring his greatcoat-clad silhouette like an enraged dragon's wings.

"Where is he?" Jack demanded, his gravelly voice even harsher with raw emotion. 

Ianto met his gaze with clear sympathy — and equally clear determination. "It's best you don't —"

Jack's burning eyes turned on a new target. "Tosh?"

Tosh dared a sidelong glance at him, evidently didn't like what she was seeing, and immediately focussed on her screen again. "Level Nine," she stated reluctantly. "He's buried himself as deeply he can in the guts of the Core's coolant systems."

Jack ducked his chin, like a bull about to charge. His voice was softer this time, but in a way that sent a cold rush of fear down Gwen's spine: "Who put him there?"

Owen's voice preceded Owen out of Jack's office: "He did. Himself."

Jack's head came up again, almost visibly wreathed in gathering flames. Gwen readied herself to lunge forward and grab him from behind if he went for his gun, but all he did was snap a wounded question: "Why?"

Owen came to stand next to Ianto, his keen dark eyes studying Jack intently. "Well, he wanted us to ship him straight off to the Braich Goch slate mines before you got back and bury him sixty metres underground, but when Ianto wouldn't let us do that, he came to the conclusion that the coolant systems were the furthest he could get away from you without actually leaving the complex."

Jack's voice ached with betrayal. "And you _let_ him?"

Tosh piped up: "It could've been worse." When Jack's gaze snapped back to her she went on: "He could have decided to put himself directly inside the Core. And there wouldn't have been much we could've done to stop him." The hair on the back of Gwen's neck prickled erect, because Tosh was exactly right: she clearly remembered the team's efforts to stop KITT from answering the summons of the Nxim computer back in August, and how the android had swept them all aside as effortlessly if they'd been paper dolls. 

"Call him back," Jack ordered.

Ianto took a half-step forward, as if the extra six inches would forge a sympathetic connection between them. "That's really not a good —"

Gwen couldn't see Jack's face from this angle, but she didn't have to: she knew the expression that went with this savage tone of voice, the dangerous glare and the feral curl of his upper lip. "I don't _need_ your opinion!" Ianto fell silent, and he turned away again. "Tosh —"

Her gaze was pleading. Beyond her and off to one side, Gwen saw Owen slipping his right hand into the pocket of his doctor's coat. "Jack, we can't —"

"Fine." He started to turn away, to stride back the way he'd come — toward the elevators providing access to the Hub's lower levels. "If you won't call him up, then I'll just have to go down there and —"

"Now," Ianto said almost conversationally, and sprinted forward with Owen hard on his heels. Ianto's sturdy arms locked around Jack's shoulders from behind as he threw his full weight onto Jack's back, almost dropping Jack to his knees; Jack staggered, but managed to remain on his feet. Jack's right hand went for the Webley on his right hip, but Gwen had already lunged into the fray and grabbed his wrist with both hands, forcing it up and away. For a second she was looking directly into Jack's eyes, and what she saw there — the amazement, the fury, the outright madness of pheromonally driven devotion — made her feel like she'd been doused in a wave of ice water.

Jack's left hand cocked back, already knotted into a fist, and she realized: _My God, he's going to punch me!_ But instead of letting go she held on tighter and closed her eyes: she couldn't dart to Jack's right, out of range, because Owen had jumped in on that side, reaching round to press the business end of a hypospray gun to Jack's carotid artery. A tiny hiss penetrated the cacophony of laboured breathing as Jack struggled to throw Ianto off… Gwen braced herself for the bullet-hard impact of Jack's fist on her face or throat… and then the powerfully twisting arm she was trying to contain stopped moving, stiffened, and fell limp. 

She opened her eyes again just in time to see Jack's expression of wide-eyed shock. His gaze was still fixed on her, and maybe she was crazy, but for the second their eyes locked she could have sworn his thoughts were being projected directly inside her skull: _You know how much I love him, how could you keep me from him when he needs me, how…?_

Then Jack's knees folded, and she hastily hooked both hands under his biceps to help Ianto lower him to the metal deck. He was fully unconscious before she guided his head carefully to rest on the floor, and she took a heartbeat to stroke the disordered fall of hair back from his forehead with quick compassionate fingertips, silently responding: _Seeing you would only hurt him, Jack — remind him that he's been doing you harm for months, even if he didn't realize it. This is what's best for both of you…_

"Well," Owen said a touch breathlessly, "that should buy us thirty to forty minutes, give or take. C'mon, let's get him down to his hidey-hole — Gwen, you haven't done your share of heavy lifting yet today, care to help Ianto do the honours?"

"You take his feet," Ianto instructed, moving round to Jack's shoulders and bending over to slide his hands under Jack's armpits. Gwen obeyed, wondering what the Hell the plan was to handle the apocalyptic explosion that would surely result when Jack woke up again, but she was too busy hauling Jack's not-inconsiderable weight by his ankles to give voice to that question, at least for the moment…


	5. The Man With A Plan

Working together, Gwen and Ianto managed to get Jack down the side stairs to Level Two: Ianto up top, both arms locked around Jack's chest, while Gwen hiked Jack's bent knees over her shoulders and supported his weight from below. They also succeeded in not knocking Jack up too badly while wrangling their way through the tall doorway into his private bunker, a doorway which was barely wide enough to easily admit a single person. 

Gwen was glad to finally deposit him flat on his back on his narrow but neatly made bed — courtesy of Ianto, no doubt — and to straighten up again, looking round at the dim interior she'd never been permitted to see before: drab metal walls, a broad standing wardrobe that looked like it had seen better days, a small bedside table with an anonymous metal clock, and a plain braided rug on the cold floor beside the bed. An even smaller door led to a tiny utilitarian bathroom complete with a single-person shower. There was no trace of anything personal, not even a single 5x7 photo in a cheap frame. Anyone could be living here —

— except that the whole place was imbued with Jack's peculiar scent, subtle but mouthwatering. She met Ianto's eyes as he leaned in to turn on the small lamp just above the bed, and the factotum blushed, immediately dropping his gaze before turning his attention to Owen, who was down on one knee beside the bunk taking the pulse in Jack's right wrist with an impersonal air. "So! How is he?"

"Heart rate's steady," Owen muttered, "body temperature's normal — for him — and…" He reached into the left pocket of his coat to pull out a compact medical scanner, which he turned on Jack while studying its small screen. "He's hopped up on Cuttlefish pheromones, same as usual."

"Not good," Ianto said dolefully. 

"We'll fix that," Owen said crisply, and Gwen knew that expression on his angular face too well: _I'm about to do something that's unpleasant for the patient, but I don't mind really — in fact, I rather enjoy it._ "A week away from the source of his addiction, ten days tops, and he'll be as clean as the proverbial whistle."

"A week," Ianto scowled.

"Ten days?" Gwen exclaimed in disbelief. "What, you're going to hit him with a shot of whatever-that-was every time he tries to get past us to see KITT?"

Owen gave her an exasperated upward glance that suggested he considered her severely brain damaged. "No," he said with insulting patience, "I'm going to tie him down with leather restraints until he's past the raving mad dog stage. _That_ should only take about four days."

Gwen stared at him, quiet horror blooming in her heart. "You're kidding. Right?" She looked to Ianto, who'd never looked less like he was kidding in his life. "We're not really going to let him —"

Ianto frowned thoughtfully. "It _would_ prevent him from breaking us all into very small pieces when he wakes up…"

Owen set the scanner aside on the bedside table and dug into his right pocket again, bringing out the hypospray and three small drug ampoules. "For now I'm topping him up with a double dose of suppressant plus some tranquillizers. That should mellow him out enough that he'll be willing to listen to reason — not that he'll have much choice in the matter."

Gwen shook her head decisively while ignoring the niggle of suspicion in her gut, the one that agreed that tying Jack up like a mental patient would solve a whole lot of problems. "No. We are _not_ doing that to him!"

Ianto's voice was even, rational, reasonable: "Owen's right, Gwen. If we don't, he'll be desperate to get to KITT — and when withdrawal really sets in there's no telling what he'll do."

Gwen spotted the flaw in that line of reasoning, and pounced with a flicker of a pained smile. "But he's not going to go into withdrawal, is he? KITT's pheromones are everywhere!"

Owen administered the first shot to Jack's helpless throat. "The Walking Laptop's currently safely locked away in a sealed level of the complex," he said briskly. "The air supply in and out is filtered to eliminate the smallest contaminants. We keep it down there and we scrub the Hub's other levels clean with an airborne neutralizing agent. That'll get rid of any pheromonal traces, and give us a clean slate to work with."

He was right, of course he was right. Gwen could see that, plain as plain. And given that KITT had tried to throw himself into the Bristol Channel the last time he'd seen Jack, they had to keep Jack confined for KITT's good as much as for his own. But nevertheless — "That's…"

"… the only way to get the job done," Owen declared. He paused in slotting the second ampoule into the hypospray to look up at Gwen again, and for an instant she saw past his brusque demeanour to the quiet scientific certainty beneath. "Believe me, I've had a lot of time to think about this. And once Jack's clean I'll be able to step him up onto a new and improved version of the suppressant, one that will hopefully make him completely immune to KITT's biochemical effects."

"So we keep him in here until he's recovered," Ianto said slowly, tasting each word as if they were a series of pungent and not-entirely-palatable olives. "And then…"

"… when he's in his right mind again again," Owen concluded as he administered the second shot, "we pack the robot up and ship it off to the slate mines. Problem solved."

A chill crept up Gwen's spine. "Jack'll never go for that!"

Owen smirked. "You think?"

His smug certainty was infuriating: he'd never been willing to look at Jack and KITT and see what was there, the genuine mutual respect and the developing affection entwined with the lust, much less the warm tenderness that Gwen had caught glimpses of when neither of them thought anybody was looking. "He was clear of the pheromones when he was buried for two thousand years," she retorted, "and he still chose to go back to KITT afterwards."

Now it was Owen's turn to scowl dismissively. "You've got no proof of that."

"He's right," Ianto said quietly, but not quietly enough to hide the edge of doubt in his voice.

"C'mon," Gwen persisted, "why else did he stay away from KITT for almost two days after he got back? He was deciding whether or not to expose himself to the pheromones again!"

Ianto suddenly looked utterly exhausted. "And… she's right. Probably."

"He chose KITT," Gwen stated, meeting Owen's unblinking hawklike gaze squarely. "And if you think he won't choose KITT again —"

Owen turned his attention back to reloading the hypospray, apparently losing interest in the conversation — but Gwen knew that expression too, and knew how pissed off he was at being relentlessly contradicted. "Look, let's get him through the DTs before we start arguing about whether or not he's really in love. Which I guarantee you, he's _not_."

Gwen watched carefully while the second shot went home. She had to take a deep breath, to brace herself for the answer to her next question: "How bad will it get?"

Owen shrugged. "He's an addict, and we'll be putting him through cold turkey withdrawal. I don't have much that will help, and even if I did, it wouldn't help much. All we can do is restrain him until the worst of it is over." Gwen raised her eyebrows at him, which he somehow picked up even though his eyes were on the process of ejecting the empty ampoule and loading in the third. "Bad. He may end up hurting himself — but as we all know, he'll just regenerate any damage."

She looked Jack over: his powerful build, all those muscles corded even in relaxation. "Will this bed even hold him?"

"Oh, it'll hold him," Ianto said without hesitation. Which earned him a look from both of them, and prompted another blush plus a gesture in the direction of the the wardrobe. "I'll just…" 

"I am not going to ask how you know that," Owen quipped after him as he retreated across the room toward the tall wooden cabinet. "Right…" The third shot hissed into Jack's neck, and Owen levered himself to his feet again. "I'll go get the straps. You two keep an eye on him, and if he wakes up — don't let him leave the room!"

"Right," Gwen nodded, not happy in the least about the conversation they'd just had but not seeing many other options. She scanned Jack again as Owen slipped back out the door, relieved to see not the slightest sign of consciousness, and when Ianto appeared beside her again carrying a folded wine-dark woollen blanket she mustered a smile and reached out to take it. "Good idea. Let's get him —"

But Ianto shook his head. "It's not for him," he clarified, looking down at Jack with narrowed eyes brimming with unspoken sorrow. "Once we've got him… settled… I'll be taking it down to KITT." He raised the blanket to his nose for a second, sniffed once, then smiled faintly with his gaze turned inward. "Smells like him."

Which made Gwen look at him much more closely — Ianto Jones, in love with Jack Harkness yet willing to save the life of his greatest rival. A mostly silent man of unsounded depths, one of which was a practical sense of compassion for that very same rival in the depths of the rival's desolation. For an instant she wanted to reach out and hug him, but every instinct warned her that the gesture wouldn't be well received.

Instead she asked, gently: "How bad is KITT, really?"


	6. In the Shadow, a Vow

The warm fondness awakened by Jack's scent on the thick woollen blanket faded from Ianto's eyes, replaced by something bleak and grim. "Well, you saw him on the cruise ship — trying to throw himself into the Channel when Jack got too close. If we hadn't grabbed him…"

" _You_ grabbed him," Gwen corrected. "You saved his life."

Ianto didn't debate the use of the word _life_ in reference to a machine's existence. He simply shook his head. "He wouldn't have drowned: he would have just… sunk."

Which wasn't a more pleasant prospect as far as Gwen was concerned."Could we have found him again?"

"Unlikely," Ianto replied at once, "if he shut off his tracking beacon. And he would have. He'd have done anything, to keep Jack safe." He glanced over his shoulder, toward the door Owen had exited through. "He might still, if we can't convince him we've got Jack completely clean in the end."

Gwen looked down again at the sturdy body sprawled on the cot in front of them and had to swallow a sudden lump of hot emotion in her throat: seven to ten days of cold withdrawal… she'd seen drug addicts thrashing so hard they'd broken fingers and screaming so loudly they'd started coughing blood, and Jack was in the grip of something far more subtle and infinitely more savage than heroin or cocaine. Immortal though he was, how badly would he tear himself apart in his anguish and his desperation?

"He was alternately sobbing and catatonic for most of the trip back to Cardiff," Ianto continued in a soft thoughtful voice, his gaze distant with memory. "It took Owen and me both, with one of his arms slung over each of our shoulders, to drag him out to the car: it was like he'd lost the will to do anything, even move under his own power. On the drive back to the Hub he asked us to take him to Braich Goch and lock him away underground, fifty-five metres down plus ten metres of water — _Where I'll never pose a danger to anybody again_ , he said. I told him that Jack wouldn't allow it, and that seemed to shut him up, but as soon as we got inside the Hub he told us he was going down to Level Nine and crawling as far into the coolant system as he possibly could. And he made us promise that we wouldn't let Jack come looking for him, no matter what."

 _Because he knew Jack would,_ Gwen thought miserably. _He knows Jack's addicted now, and that knowledge would have killed him if he'd been capable of dying at all._ Worse, Jack was addicted to something that didn't just dwell inside his skin, something with a body he could hold and eyes he could gaze into… something that was suffering, locked in its own prison of grief and guilt… something he could get to, if only they'd take off his restraints, if only they'd open the door…

She could already hear him screaming until blood flew from his lips, until his voice was torn to shreds — maybe until his heart stopped, too battered and weary to go on another second — 

"I —" She closed her eyes, trying to get a grip on her thoughts as they reeled back in horror from the brutal images. "Ianto, I don't think I can —"

"We've got to." He sounded so tired, but there was steel in his words too. "Unless you want to ship KITT away to that slate mine, right now? Might be simpler."

She rounded a glare at him. A bitter laugh coughed out of her, harsh and disbelieving.

"Didn't think so," Ianto murmured, almost a sigh. "Then we've got to do exactly what Owen says." Bitterness infused his voice, startling in its depth. "No matter what we see, no matter what Jack says or does. And if KITT tries to come back up, we've got to keep them separated using any means necessary."

Another flash of memory — KITT walking calmly across the Hub's main level with a distant look in his red-glowing eyes, throwing his teammates effortlessly out of his way with blasts of ionic energy calculated to stun rather than kill — made the short hairs stand up on the back of Gwen's neck. She studied Ianto's solemn profile intently. "How? If he really wants to see Jack, he'll tear the Hub apart to get to him."

Ianto shook his head again. "Yeah. He would. But I don't think he'll risk it. You didn't see him, shuddering and wailing on the deck after you got Jack away — he's utterly horrified by what he's done, and all he wants to do is keep as far away from human beings as possible. Kindest thing we can do for him is exactly what Owen says: seal off the level and leave him the Hell alone."

A different kind of chill washed through Gwen's gut: KITT might be a machine, but he was far from unfeeling, and every instinct Gwen possessed told her that seven to ten days locked up with only his own guilt for company would leave him damaged beyond repair. "We can't. It would kill him, in every way that mattered. _Someone_ has to be with him! And the rest of us aren't affected by his pheromones, so there's no reason one of us can't —"

"Tosh," Ianto said quietly, his gaze still fixed on Jack's peaceful face. He must have sensed Gwen's questioning scowl, because he glanced round briefly and mustered an encouraging trace of a smile. "She's setting up a dedicated channel on KITT's private carrier frequency. She'll talk to him, keep him up to date on what's going on in the outside world, give him access to the mainframe… except what's happening in here." Another sigh, a small shrug. "She doesn't think he'll talk back, but at least he'll have a voice in his ear, so to speak. And if he so much as moves a fingertip, we'll know."

"But —" Which was as far as Gwen got, because Jack suddenly moaned, a low bleary sound full of painful questioning. Their attention focussed on him at once; Ianto clutched the blanket a little tighter, while Gwen squatted and reached out to take Jack's right hand in her own. She forced herself to smile, and to transmit the smile through her voice: "It's all right, Jack. It's fine. We're here, you're safe…"

Jack grunted, a harsh little cough of air that might have been _No!_ — but aside from a single twitch of his fingers in Gwen's grasp he didn't move, and although they both waited several seconds he made no further attempt to speak. By that time Owen was coming back down the stairs, and when he breezed into the cramped bunker space with two suitcases in hand Gwen experienced a nearly overpowering urge to duck out and head up those stairs as fast as her legs would carry her — anything, to avoid the ordeal of seeing Jack shackled and tied to his own bed like a madman in an asylum…

No. She had to stay, for Jack's sake. So he had someone who'd serve as a witness… and there was one last thing she could do for him and for KITT both: reach down as she rose to her feet and gently remove the comm unit from his right ear, then turn it off, so there'd be no chance of another moan making it onto the Hub's general channel. If KITT had heard…

She spoke quietly into her own unit as she stepped back into the room's far corner, giving Owen room to set down the cases beside the bed and open them up: "KITT, if you can hear me… he's all right. We're taking care of him. We'll do whatever's necessary — no matter what it takes, I promise!"

Was that a faint crackle on the comms? Yes, because it was followed by a quiet whisper, nearly inaudible, whose combination of dull misery and bottomless ache went straight to Gwen's heart like a shot of cold acid: "Yes, Ms. Cooper. I know you will." A pause as painful as a razor's glide on naked skin. "In case there isn't time to say it later… Goodbye. And thank you. All of you. For everything, even though I never deserved it."

She shook her head, deliberately keeping her eyes fixed on the long leather straps Owen was removing from the suitcases, their reinforced ends adorned with buckles and padding. Ianto was staring too, the blanket clutched tightly in both hands. "Don't talk like that! You'll be back here with us before you —"

A tiny click over the comms, as final as the boom of a steel blast door being closed in her face, was the only reply: it appeared that KITT had said all he intended to say on the subject, leaving a chill in the marrow of Gwen's bones that had nothing to do with the ambient temperature in Jack's own small prison. 

"Give me a hand, will you?" Owen said sharply to Ianto, and Ianto stiffened as if he'd been slapped. When he looked round for a place to set down the blanket Gwen took a step forward, holding out her hand, and he passed it over without hesitation before going down on one knee at Owen's side, his jaw set and his shoulders deliberately squared. "Right. Best to start with his arms. You take the left wrist, I'll take the right…"

Gwen wrapped both arms around the square of heavy wool, cradling it against her breasts as she longed to cradle its owner's tousled head. The scent of Jack Harkness, a complex perfume of male musk and something even more compelling, rose from it and flowed into her and out of her with every breath. Would that prove a comfort or a torment to the morally tortured being in self-imposed exile eight levels below their feet? Would it be enough to hold KITT there, or would the promise of being reunited with Jack prove too much for the android to bear? What if it did? How could the human members of Torchwood Three stop him, if he decided to remove himself from the equation permanently?

Try as she might — and she was thinking so hard that blood pulsed a dull red drumbeat at her temples — she couldn't come up a better alternative. All she could do was suffer with them, and pray with a childhood's lost faith that there was enough genuine love between them to endure. She could stay close to Jack's side and pour her own love onto Jack's wounds as each layer of his inner agony broke open and bled: even if his heart wasn't destined to be hers, she could still cup it in both hands and shelter it from the storm as best she could. It might not be much, but it was all she had to offer, and she prayed again, silently and even more fervently, that the measure of her devotion would prove sufficient to the task.

In the days to come she would hold him and adore him openly, this man she'd never been able to claim for her own — and even if it wasn't the intimacy she'd always longed for between them, surely it would be a thing of beauty and tenderness even in the midst of terror. It would be enough. 

It would _have_ to be enough, for all their sakes, as they each made their slow and painful way toward a brave new world.

THE END


End file.
